BCM, UH Law Center combine to create first
doctor-lawyer degree in Southwest
HOUSTON – (December 1, 2004) – Advanced degree seekers
deciding between medicine and law can now experience the best of
both worlds for the first time in the Southwest. Baylor College
of Medicine (BCM) and the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC)
will offer an MD/JD dual degree in the fall of 2005.
“Medicine and law have been connected ever since human societies
have originated as hunters and gatherers, so there is a natural
affiliation between the two,” said Dr. Victor R. Scarano,
associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at BCM.
“Both BCM and the University of Houston are responding to
today’s increasingly complex health care environment and societal
need for interdisciplinary physicians who can navigate the relationship
between medicine and law.”
BCM and UHLC are the first institutions west of the Mississippi
River to provide such a joint degree program.
“The JD/MD concurrent program shows that the UH Law Center
is indisputably committed to maintaining the best and most innovative
health law program in the country,” said Seth J. Chandler,
vice dean and co-director of the Health Law & Policy Institute
at the University of Houston’s Law Center.
In the six-year program, students would spend the first two years
at Baylor, the next two at UH and the final two at both schools.
Applicants must take both the MCAT and LSAT exams and be accepted
to both schools for admission into the joint program. Dr. Wayne
J. Riley, vice president and vice dean of health affairs and governmental
relations at BCM, estimates that between two and six students will
be admitted in the first year.
“We are not going for large numbers of students but rather
very select individuals who are committed to a long-term degree
program,” said Riley, who will serve as an ex-officio member
of the MD/JD advisory committee. “This will be a natural affiliation
in Houston, where two outstanding institutions engaged in medicine
and law have come together to offer a unique educational experience.”
BCM ranked No. 13 overall among medical schools in 2004 by U.S.
News & World Report, which has consistently listed UHLC’s
Health Law & Public Policy Institute as No. 1 among health law
programs in the country. Only 17 other institutions in the United
States offer the joint program, according to the Association of
American Medical Colleges.
Scarano and Riley cite the growing, critical nexus between the
medical and legal professions, especially in healthcare policy,
risk management and malpractice issues, intellectual property rights
and biotechnology.
Graduates with both MD and JD degrees can choose between any number
of career paths.
“We are intending that from the outset these students are
going to be integrated into both the medical and the legal communities
so that they can feel that they are truly integral members of both
professions,” said Scarano, who will serve as co-chair of
the MD/JD advisory committee as well as instructor of the introductory
health law course. “There are numerous areas in the social
structure that involve interactions between law and medicine, especially
with all of our newer discoveries and the advancement of medicine
into genetics.”
For more information about UH visit the universitys
Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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